1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a manually operated moistener of the type suitable for use with a mail processing machine as well as similar billing or mail processing apparatuses to which a postal item is manually supplied. Moisteners are used together with devices for sealing postal goods, in particular letter envelopes with a flap that has a water-activated adhesive edge.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A device for wetting and sealing the flap of a letter envelope supplied lying flat is a known from U.S. Pat. No. 799,304. The letter envelope has a flap on its upper side (in the device) and bears the receiver address on its underside.
A wetting device for letter flaps in connection with franking machines is known from German 15 11 420. A letter envelope supplied flat has a turned-down but not yet adhered lap on its underside. The wetting device has a platform and a sword-shaped blade that can be rotated on a hinge so as to cover the platform, the blade being provided with a wetting strip in the underside thereof facing the platform, in a region that is near the top of the envelope flap when the envelope is in place. The wetting strip penetrates between the envelope body and the flap and moistens the flat when the envelope is advanced. The wetting strip is held by spring tongues, which also press the flap of the envelope being guided through the wetting device against the wetting strip so that the adhesive edge is moistened. This wetting device was used in the 1970s for electrical franking machines of the type CM 7000 commercially available from Francotyp Postalia and in a slightly improved form in the 1980s for electrical franking machines of the type MS 5 Curier and MS 5 WK, as well as in the 1990s for electronic franking machines of the type EFS.
The thermotransfer franking machine T1000, also commercially available from Francotyp Postalia, has a fixed thermotransfer print head in the housing for printing a franking imprint and a bay externally attached to the housing for acceptance of an exchangeable ink ribbon cartridge (U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,228). A manual moistener which is basically formed of a cladding, tank, seal, flap separator blade and moistening rocker can be pre-fixed to the thermotransfer franking machine T1000. The screwing together of the parts ordinarily ensues from below so that the screws are hidden from view. The moistening rocker is provided with a natural felt attached in a mount that presses by means of elastic force against a natural felt arranged below, which is integrated into the cladding and acts as a water transfer means in order to supply the water located in the tank to the upper natural felt.
Since normally the tank will not be completely empty of water, the connection from below complicates the regular cleaning cycle of the tank and can lead to unwanted spillate of the remaining water via the filling opening when the module is tilted to loosen the screws.
The filling opening is hidden, covered and so that evaporation of the water during times of non-usage is reduced, such that the system does not dry out given a longer downtime.
The filling opening is open in comparable devices of other franking machine manufacturers, for example the type DM 300 commercially available from Pitney Bowes, in order to enable easy refilling (U.S. Pat. No. 6,406,591), but the water level is more significantly reduced by evaporation so that the water tank of the device can dry out given longer downtimes of the franking machine.
Actuated letter closers of the EFS and Ultimail® franking machines commercially available from Francotyp Postalia are somewhat complicated and make use of a removable tank and with a ball valve integrated into a sealing cap on the underside of the tank. A letter closing machine of the type V3000 for franking machines of the type EFS has an automatic separating and feed device with a downstream moistening and letter closing device. From a front view, the removable tank lies behind the moistening device and can be extracted from above.
A tank with ball seal also exists in comparable devices by other franking machine manufacturers, for example Pitney Bowes, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,806. Such a ball seal can reduce evaporation, but makes filling the tank with water more difficult. Such a removable tank with a ball seal is somewhat complex, which makes the manufacture thereof more expensive. This is balanced against the advantage of avoiding drying out of the water reservoir, which leads to time-consuming re-start difficulties of the system after refilling, since dried-out moistening elements and special natural felts can only be wetted again with difficulty and, upon drying out, easily form unhealthy mold and mildew.
To prevent this disadvantage, the upper moistening elements, that are in danger of drying out, in Ultimail or and EFS, and in the manual moistener according to U.S. Pat. No. 6,406,591 (Pitney Bowes), now use brushes instead of felt. Brushes, however, can store less water and are more easily contaminated by the flap adhesive.
The letter-closing machine of the type V3000 for EFS franking machines has a brush with a rear-fed felt serving for water storage in the upper region of the moistener. The felt storage for the most part draws water from the lower tank region from above via a wick, while the flap of the mail item prevents absorption via the lower transfer material. However, this makes the accessibility to the moistener elements more difficult and can easily lead to the unseating of the upper moistener elements on the lower transfer material if the flexible wick prevents a down folding.
Particularly in manual moisteners, the pressure of the upper moistener elements on the lower transfer material or the envelope flap can be reinforced by a spring, which leads to a more secure water transfer and adhesion of the moistened flap to the envelope body. Separate axles are mounted as rotation points for the moistener rocker. There are also simplified arrangements in which these axles are integrated into molded parts (such as the blade and the moistener rocker) with specially formed geometries (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,926,787 and 4,903,633 and 5,022,953 and letter closers of the type V3000 for the EFS and Ultimail® franking machines).
Particularly with smaller postal apparatuses with lesser metering capacity and lower throughput of mail pieces, longer downtimes frequently occur in which the water reservoir can dry out by evaporation. In this case aggravated, unhealthy mold and mildew formation occurs in many moistening materials. After the devices have been dried out, time-consuming start-up difficulties occur until the necessary moistening capabilities are again available to the system. Some moistening materials are even unusable and must be changed. The water level in the tank often can be detected read only with difficulty, so refilling is easily forgotten. Given a modular design, i.e. a tank that is removable from the franking machine, at the regular cleaning intervals spillage of the residual water content easily occurs during the tilting of the module in order to reach the screw connections accessible from below. As noted above, the water filling opening is covered in the known moistener used in the T1000 franking, but it is accessible only with difficulty since it is hidden, at a central location relative to the flap length, below the rotational axis of the spring-operated moistening rocker. In the predecessor model, the moistener contact surfaces of the upper and lower water transfer means are too narrow to ensure a sufficient wetting of large or long flaps lying transversally in C4 envelope formats.